I feel fulfilled with my work as a freelance programmer.
I enjoy programming; I find it mentally stimulating. The market is such that I can turn away work that I find ethically distasteful, work remotely (and thus travel and/or live in a more low-COL peaceful area), and the pay is high enough that I can take a significant amount of time off to code on projects that are directly interesting to me. I feel this is a better situation than the vast majority of people are in.
It took me a while to arrive at thinking about it like this, but I think most of it was mental on my part rather than the job opportunities available to me. I recently read So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport and I wish I'd read it when I was in college.
I enjoy programming; I find it mentally stimulating. The market is such that I can turn away work that I find ethically distasteful, work remotely (and thus travel and/or live in a more low-COL peaceful area), and the pay is high enough that I can take a significant amount of time off to code on projects that are directly interesting to me. I feel this is a better situation than the vast majority of people are in.
It took me a while to arrive at thinking about it like this, but I think most of it was mental on my part rather than the job opportunities available to me. I recently read So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport and I wish I'd read it when I was in college.